The invention concerns an equipment terminal plug, particularly for wiring electrical equipment with tight space ratios.
In particular, electrical equipment used for control and regulation of technical apparatus is continually becoming smaller and more powerful. Such items are constructed for the most part so small that they can be used, e.g., in household technology in standard flush mountings, surface mounts, and distribution panels, or the like. The invention is concerned with connection of this, and of course, also other electrical equipment, which must be installed with electrical conductors under tight space ratios.
It is the task of the invention to develop an equipment terminal plug, which has two or more clamp-spring conductor terminal plugs per terminal pole, which plugs serve for the screwless connection of two or more electrical conductors, and which have the socket part of a plug connection per pole, for plugging the equipment terminal plug into the electrical apparatus.
It is essential that this task must be resolved for very constricted space ratios.
This task is resolved according to the invention by the fact that the individual conductor terminal plugs of the equipment terminal plug are arranged in series with one another in an aligned row with parallel orientation to each other and all are integrally formed from a one one-piece (one-part) contact application sheet, and that the axial plug direction of the socket part of the equipment terminal plug extends in the series direction of the aligned row of conductor plug terminals, whereby the axial length of the socket part essentially overlaps the series length of the conductor terminal plugs, and that one of the sides of the socket part is formed directly by a formed face of the contact application sheet and that the other side of the socket part is formed by one or more socket contact bows formed from the contact application sheet.
The present invention assure that equipment terminal plugs will be executed in an extremely small construction. The crossing plug directions of the conductor plug connections lying next to each other, on the one hand, and of the socket contact, on the other hand, produce, together with the overlapping arrangement of the socket contact with the otherwise necessary series length of the conductor terminal plugs lying next to one another, an integration action, which makes possible a very compact and small construction of the new equipment plug terminals, despite the number of connecting places that are present.
For this it is also essential that the one-part contact application of the new equipment terminal plug according to the invention has at the same time a formed face, which directly represents one of the sides of the plug connection socket part required according to the task of the invention. The socket part of the plug connection cannot be integrated more closely and compactly in the contact application sheet from which the individual conductor connections are made.
This is particularly clear when more than two, e.g., four conductor connecting plugs are to be executed per terminal pole, e.g., for connecting, looping through, and possible branching of electrical conductors. In this case, the socket part integrated into the equipment terminal plug essentially corresponds to the series length of the conductor terminal plugs arranged next to one another, so that the connection space of the new equipment connecting plugs is utilized to the utmost extent for connection of the diverse electrical conductors as well as also for the arrangement of the plug connection.
A particularly advantageous form of embodiment of the invention provides that the contact application sheet (considered in a cross section transverse to the series direction row of conductor plugs forms an open conductor receiving space that is essentially flat and U-shaped, whose open end lies opposite the open end of a plug leg part essentially formed flat and U-shaped also. The conductor receiving space is thus bent out opposite the plug leg part in a sort of elbow, whereby a type of elbow groove is produced in which the socket part of the plug connection presses in a way that is extremely economical of space.
Another embodiment of the new equipment terminal plug of the invention solves the task of creating a polarity protection for the equipment terminal plugs, which assures for the worker that a polarity mix-up does not occur when connecting the various electrical conductors to the equipment terminal plug as well as during the production of the plug connections for respective electrical equipment adapted to receive the terminal plug.
As a solution, it has been proposed that each terminal pole is accommodated in a separate insulated housing and that the individual pole housings for a 2-pole plug, for example, are composed by the inter-engagement of linear positive connector guides, e.g., dovetail guides, whereby each pole housing has a projecting or male connector guide component on one side and a return or female connector guide component on the other side, and whereby it is important that the positive guides extend in the "plug in" direction of the socket part of the plug connection integrated into the equipment terminal plug, such that the equipment terminal plug composed of individual pole plugs has on its opposite sides different guide components, which provide a polarity protection when the plug connection is inserted, together with the corresponding projecting and return components in the housing of the apparatus unit.
The present form of embodiment of the new equipment terminal plug above all has the advantage that each pole housing of the individual poles can be injection molded in different colors according to injection molding techniques, for example, in the respective colors of the electrical conductors to be connected to the equipment terminal plug. Possible pole mix-ups are then optically visible without anything further.
The positive guides provided for combining the individual pole plugs to a 2-pole or multi-pole apparatus terminal plug are also utilized at the same time for assuring a mechanical terminal protection when plugging in new equipment terminal . plugs to the respective electrical apparatus, together with the corresponding projecting and return components in the housing of the electrical apparatus.